ABSTRACT
The “Ode to Psyche” was, John Keats said, he had taken “even moderate pains” with his writing, which had previously been rushed and careless. The soul, to “create itself”, must have an inherent vitality beyond the control of society or the selfhood. Spying, voyeurism, “smokeability”, the thought-police of the political-literary establishment—in short, the Claustrum—was the factors that smothered the soul in purgatory. And they all came under the heading of “lack of knowledge”. Keats recollected his thoughts on the buffets of the world and circumstances like clouds, and he came up with his famous parable of the world as a “vale of Soul-making”, as an alternative to the superstitious and pessimistic “vale of tears”. Instead of the defensive windows of ambiguity and illusion that are drawn between the protagonists in “La Belle Dame”, we have a reflective drama between soul and Soul-goddess, a gradual drinking in of meaning.
